skerrin

Hello Dave,

My question origiates from some confusion, at least to me, after reading numerous posts and sometimes conflicting information regarding the mandatory Safety Officer and Document 537. To help lift the fog, it would be helpful if you would address the following:

â—Ź Provide a bit of background on SO/538 (from your perspective)

â—Ź What you see as the duties and responsibilities (could read liabilities) of the SO

â—Ź How you see Document 537 would coming into play

Thanks for your time and effort.

Steve Kerrin

Dave Mathewson

Hi Steve,
Well as you know at the February EC meeting we voted in favor of requiring our chartered clubs to have a safety officer with email capability beginning in 2005. The idea was to develop a method by which we could share safety information with our clubs. The Safety Officer would provide that conduit. This all came out of discussion from a committee the president was chairing. During that committee report there was discussion on what the duties of a club safety officer could/should be. But that discussion ended without action. I voted in favor of the motion to ONLY create the position with the stipulation that the person in that position have email capability. And that’s the way the motion reads.

I don’t believe 537 comes into play at all here. It was never brought up during discussion and is not part of the motion. As for the document itself, I’m not comfortable with it. I’m especially concerned over items 1 and 2 in the duties for the SO. IMAA decided several years ago they didn’t want to go down that road and I don’t think we want to either. Other items suggest the collection of data with no good plan on what to do with the data once it’s collected. BTW, the couple other Council members I have talked to about 537 feel the same way.

The addition of the disclaimer to the document helps some but doesn’t totally clear up the confusion. It should be made entirely clear that 537 list recommendations only. Clubs can use all of the suggestions, some of them, or none of them. It’s up to the club. With that said I’d be even more comfortable if 537 was removed all together or at least rewritten to remove some of the more questionable suggestions like the ones mentioned above.
Dave